The Power of Unileaks

The publication of documents presents a barrier to those who try to muddy the waters. We give one such example from complaints that have been made against Dr. Thornton following the publication of his whistleblowing paper. This latest complaint by the Head of School of Politics and International Relations, Prof. Heywood, [here] asserts that the paper “contains many errors of fact and interpretation”. His begins his analysis with this segment of Dr. Thornton’s report (p4-5):

Thornton: “As I say, the concerns I have been raising within the university have led to disciplinary action against myself. … There were, though, some interesting new ones. I am now charged, for instance, with not providing correct copies of my course reading lists to my School’s Office Manager. These were “incorrect” in that on one occasion I did “not add [my] office hours to the front page”; I had also infringed School policy by having “more than 12 essays on the module guide”, and I was accused of not submitting my reading lists “on the correct template”. All of these disciplinary “charges” were, of course, acts of genuine oversight on my part.”

In his complaint, Prof. Heywood leads his diagnosis of inaccuracies with the following observation: “Not a single one of these comments [above] appears in any part of the letter of complaint I sent to the Registrar” [here]. If we look at the document Dr. Thornton refers to [here] we see why : the ‘comments’ were enclosed with the Professors letter to the Registrar, they did not “appear” in the letter. Dr. Thornton’s case still stands. This helps shows the strength of Dr. Thornton’s research which stands up to scrutiny even from those implicated in it.